Into Darkness

2

Richard lifted his shoulder, trying to shelter his ear from a frigid gust of wind. His fingers and ears ached from the cold. As the sun sank behind the mountains, not only was the light fading fast, but the temperature high up in the mountains seemed to be dropping even faster.

The cold, though, was the least of Richard’s concerns. He urgently needed to get even higher up in the mountains to the tree line to find the mother’s breath plant if he was to save both Kahlan and their unborn babies.

Vika had told him that mother’s breath had odd, lopsided leaves. She held up her fist with the back of her hand facing him. “The shape of the leaves looks like this. If you ever saw it once, you would never forget it, but it’s rare. I’ve only seen it a couple of times in my life, and then only up in the mountains near the tree line.”

Richard dared not let himself worry about how rare it was. He just needed to get up to where it grew so he could search for it. He told himself that he was going to find it, and that was that.

The tree line, though, was still quite some distance away and much higher up the mountains. It was slow going trying to find an uncharted way up among the rocks and often dense trees of the steep and rugged terrain. It was difficult enough in the day, but he knew that in such mountainous country where there were no trails, it would be virtually impossible for the horses to climb once it was dark.

He also knew from Shale’s urgency that time was critical to Kahlan’s survival, so darkness or no darkness, one way or another, he intended to press on. Since the horses couldn’t continue on in darkness, as soon as he found a place to leave them, he intended to keep going without them.

An all-too-familiar memory came to mind. Zedd had always said that nothing was ever easy.

Richard forced the thought from his mind as he turned his attention toward an opening between a stand of young spruce trees. Beyond was a jumble of rock with just enough space for the horses to pass through. It was the only way he could find that looked to have any chance to lead them higher.

Richard was using all his knowledge and experience as a woods guide to find a way to steadily make it to higher ground. Occasionally, game trails helped. Even so, without a real trail, they had a number of times come to the base of impassable cliffs that forced them to find another way around so they could keep going up. Other times, what had looked like a good route ahead ended at a drop-off that forced them to backtrack and find another way in order to keep going.

Richard tried to scan the mountainside higher up while his horse carefully picked its way over the loose rock between tall rock formations rising up to either side. Water seeped down the faces of some of the speckled rock, leaving green and brown streaks. Plants growing in the cracks hung down in places, making it look like green walls. Tangles of roots here and there made the footing tricky. He wanted the horse to hurry, but he knew that it was climbing as fast as it could. It was almost as if it could sense his urgency.

As they made steady progress ever higher, they entered low clouds. The soft gray blankets rolled over the jutting towers of rock as if trying to find a way down. As they climbed upward into the clouds it made the granite the horses had to walk over slick and the footing dangerous. In places the horses had difficulty on the steep ground only made worse in the wet. Their hooves slipped repeatedly before they could find adequate grip.

He knew that in such steep country going back down would be considerably more difficult for the horses than going up. It would likely be too dangerous in many places to ride down. For much of the way down he knew they would have to do the descent on foot, letting the horses pick their way without having to also deal with a rider who would make it more difficult for them to balance.

But first they had to find the plant Shale had sent them for. That was all that mattered.

Vika followed behind without comment. She was his sworn protector, after all, and in addition to wanting to find the mother’s breath, as Mord-Sith, Richard’s safety was her first responsibility. She knew how desperate he was to keep going despite how dark and dangerous it was getting, so she didn’t object. With the way the trees found places to grow in among the rocks they were picking their way over, even without the fog the canopies were too dense for them to see higher up and how much farther they would need to go.

Not long before, through an opening in the trees and despite the thickening fog, in a rare moment of clear sky he had been able to catch a brief glimpse of the mountains towering above them. Through that opening in the trees he had seen that the tree line was still a great distance away.

As it grew darker, he was having trouble picking out a passable route. On top of the darkness, the fog was making it difficult to see very far. Besides cutting visibility, the fog was creating an icy mist that was both miserable and slippery.

As they came up into a broad area that was somewhat level, their progress blocked by a fragmented granite wall, Richard frantically looked for a way up. Worried they were again going to have to backtrack, he suddenly spotted something in among the trees atop that vertical granite barrier.

“I think I see a trail.”

Vika rode up beside him and frowned. She looked to each side, seeing that there was clearly no way around.

“A trail? Are you sure?”

Richard pointed up at the top of the granite. “Look over there to that split in the granite wall. I think it might be a way up.”

“We can’t take the horses up that. It’s way too steep.”

“Yes, but it looks like there are boulders and rock jammed into that crevice that would allow us to climb up it on foot. Look at the top of the wall over to the left by that mass of tree roots coming down over the edge. What do you see?”

Vika rested her wrists on the horn of her saddle as she stood in the stirrups and leaned forward, squinting up at the top of the wall.

“That’s strange. It’s foggy and hard to see, but it looks like it might be several stones stacked atop one another.”

“Exactly.” Richard dismounted. “It’s a cairn.”

She frowned over at him. “What’s a cairn?”

“It’s a way to mark a trail in difficult areas where it would be easy or even dangerous to get lost and go the wrong way. If I’m right, and it’s not something natural, it would mean we have come across a long-forgotten trail.”

Vika held her long, single blond braid in her fist over the front of her shoulder as she frowned up at the top of the wall. “Why would there be a trail up here?”

“It could very well be an old trail leading over a pass. It has to be from before the boundary that ran up the spine of these mountains. If I’m right, it may be a way not only to get up higher to the tree line, but to get over these mountains. It could be a trail that leads over a pass and into the Midlands.”

“The horses can’t get up there, that’s for sure.”

“You’re right about that,” Richard said as he dismounted.

Once on the ground, he started to unbuckle the saddle girth strap. “We are going to have to leave them and go the rest of the way on foot. If it really is a trail, this would be an incredible stroke of luck. Once we find the mother’s breath and heal Kahlan, then we might even be able to get over the mountains on this trail. That would save us a lot of time getting to Aydindril.”

Vika scanned the area before she climbed down out of her saddle. “It’s pretty flat here, but what if the horses wander off?”

“It’s a risk we will have to take. Let’s get the saddles and tack off them,” he said.

“Should we take anything with us?” she asked.

Richard nodded. “We’d better at least take our packs.”

“We should also take some dried meat and whatever supplies we can carry,” she suggested.

“I have some oats tied to the back of my saddle. I will leave some of it out for the horses. That should keep them around.” Richard gestured to the left. “There is a little water running down off the rocks over there. It’s collecting enough for them to get a drink. After we get the saddles off we need to break out the travel candles. The light is fading fast, but if that really is a trail up there, the candles will help enough that we should be able to keep going.”

Vika glanced up toward the mountain they could no longer see. “Candles in the tin traveling cases won’t provide much light.”

“With the fog, even if it was still light out, we wouldn’t be able to see very far anyway. With the candles you can wait at that cairn up there while I scout ahead to see if I can find the next one. When I do, you can come catch up and then wait at that one until I find the next. In that way, if it really is a trail marked with cairns, we can keep going even in the dark.”

Richard dragged the saddle off his horse and set it on a rock. As Vika did the same, he spread some oats on a flat area of rock. The horses were eager to eat. After giving them a pat on the neck, he swung his pack and his bow up on a shoulder. Vika untied supplies from her saddle. She hoisted her pack up onto her shoulder.

Once Richard lit a strip of birch bark with a steel and flint and it flared up into flame, he then used that to light the candles. They immediately started out into the foggy darkness, climbing up the narrow split in the granite wall.